Donald Trump is continuing his “Make America Great Again” initiative by cracking down on illegal immigrants. Countries that delay/refuse to welcome back their citizens will apparently be blacklisted. Nations including Cambodia, Eritrea, Guinea and Sierra Leone were mentioned. All, with the exception of Cambodia, are African nations. Of the four, only Sierra Leone was not deemed “recalcitrant” by US ImmigrationOfficials in July.

If you don’t want them, neither do we

The US State Department issued new policies and alerted the offending countries by cable on Wednesday. Officials maintained that if the nations decide to accept their deportees, visa restrictions would be lifted.

Of the four countries in question, Eritrea faces the harshest sanctions. According to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, “any Eritreans who apply in their own country for most U.S. business or tourist visas, will be rejected.” It’s not the first time that the US has embarked on a mass deportation of African nationals. 70 Ghanaians were returned in handcuffs in April 2017, after 7000 of them were warned about getting out of the US.

For Cambodia and Sierra Leone, the sanctions affect Foreign Ministry workers at or above the rank of Director General and their relatives. Those seeking personal travel visas will be turned down. Guinea officials were surprised at the sanctions but assured their nationals that their Foreign Minister is working to rectify the situation. The US said it would no longer distribute “a range of tourist, business and student visas to government officials and their immediate family members who apply from inside the country.” But Guinea insists that there must be some kind of misunderstanding.

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According to its Government, it has never wanted to prevent the return of anyone who broke American law. Despite the sanctions, there are still some exceptions that can be considered, based on humanitarian laws.

Protecting our own

The US remains adamant that it will not continue to endanger the lives of its citizens by housing foreign criminals. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said: “American citizens have been harmed because foreign governments refuse to take back their citizens.” The situation seems dire, considering that ICE released less than 3,000 foreigners, many of whom had serious criminal convictions. These included 2,137 Guineans and 831 Sierra Leone nationals. As of Wednesday 13 September, there were also nearly 700 Eritreans and more than 1,900 Cambodians marked for deportation.

At a rally in Ohio in July, President Trump likened America’s illegal immigrant situation to a war. He said gang leaders and other foreign criminals were poisoning US communities and the US needed to free itself from such evil.

His administration has ensured that the ICE list of recalcitrant nations, has been warned about not taking back their people. According to Immigration officials, Cuba topped the list by being the most unwilling to have them return. Other erring lands included Somalia, India, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Iran, Morocco, and China. So far, none of those have been slapped with visa sanctions.

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